


could be (that he's into you)

by Edgebug



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Fluff, Holodecks/Holosuites, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Shapeshifting, background garashir, egregious romanticization of a swamp, egregious use of Ferengi words for rain, explicit depictions of algae, gift-giving, questionable Ferengi dating customs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:14:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28064514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edgebug/pseuds/Edgebug
Summary: If Odo doesn't get the point from this, Quark is going to jump out an airlock.Not really. But he'll get drunk about it.(In which Quark tries to communicate a point without actually saying it.)
Relationships: Julian Bashir/Elim Garak, Odo/Quark (Star Trek)
Comments: 41
Kudos: 161





	could be (that he's into you)

**Author's Note:**

> ♪ oops i did it again ♫ ♪
> 
> here's another quodo fic because apparently i've lost control of my life! honestly it's appropriate that my 2020 ends with me unabashedly shipping a horrid gremlin with a slime man

Quark slides a small box across Odo's desk and gives what he thinks is a winning smile.

Odo squints down at the box, then his eyes flick up to Quark's. "What's this."

"It's a gift!"

"A gift. Hmph. I suppose you'll want to be paid back."

Quark inclines his head, regards Odo with mock sympathy. "Aw, that's sad. Do you know what a gift is?"

He just gets an annoyed grunt in response. "You don't seem like the type."

"Shows what you know." He motions to the box. "Open it."

Odo's mouth quirks in that suspicious way that it does as his fingers curl around the top of the box and begin to pry it up.

"Of course," Quark says, his voice an airy, lilting tease, "if you _really_ want to pay me back, I can't stop you, so feel free."

"Not a chance." Odo opens the box and Quark waits patiently for a reaction. He doesn't get one. Odo stares blankly into the box and it takes three and a half seconds for Quark to lose his patience.

"Well?" Quark crosses his arms. "Say something."

"What is this?"

"They're cufflinks! Latinum-plated!"

"Cufflinks."

"Yeah, you wear them on your sleeves like--"

Odo huffs. "I know what _cufflinks_ are, Quark! I mean why are you giving them to me?"

"You gonna keep asking questions or are you gonna accept the gift?"

Odo's eyes narrow. "Do you want something from me?"

"I _want_ you to just enjoy the gift, Odo."

"Why cufflinks? If I wanted a pair, I could simply..." He shakes out his arms and immediately he's rearranged himself into a smart blazer with exact replicas of the very cufflinks in the box.

"It's different!" Quark throws his hands up. "Those are real latinum, you ingrate!"

"On the contrary, Quark," Odo drawls, sounding deeply put-upon, "I'm _exactly_ as grateful as the gift calls for."

_What an ass. It's a shame I like that about him._

"You could at least say 'thank you'!"

"Thank you," Odo says, mildly and boringly, like he's reciting from a textbook, before he shakes himself out, ripples translucent amber for just a moment, and is back into his usual uniform. "They're very nice cufflinks, I'm sure."

"You're welcome," Quark grumbles. As he watches, Odo puts the lid back on the box and places it in a drawer, where it'll probably be forgotten and never looked at again. What a waste of perfectly good latinum. Quark doesn't know why he bothers.

(Except that's not true. He _does_ know why he's bothering, and that just makes it so, so, _so_ much worse.)

-

"Quark!"

Right on time. Quark grins.

"Yes?"

"What," Odo says, holding out at arms' length the new box Quark had left in his office earlier, "is this?"

"Looks like a box." Quark polishes a glass. "Your detective skills are getting rusty, Constable."

"What is _in_ it?"

"You have to open it and find out. It's. A. Gift."

"Another gift!" Odo unceremoniously drops the box on the bar and Quark squawks.

"Hey! Be careful with that, you don't even know what's in it!"

"Are you attempting to _bribe_ me?"

"If I were trying to bribe you, don't you think I'd have told you what I'm bribing you for by now?"

"That depends entirely on what exactly you're trying to accomplish."

Quark folds his arms. "Listen, are you gonna open the present or not?"

Odo frowns and opens the box. He peers into it. "What _is_ this?"

"It's a genuine section of emerald meteorite from Bre'el IV." And it was expensive, is what he doesn't add. He doesn't need to. It's obvious.

Odo gingerly lifts the disc of meteorite up from the box. It's shiny and translucent and an incredible deep teal color that shifts in color when you hold it to the light like all the Bre'el emeralds.

"I have no use for a drink coaster," Odo says shortly, "I don't drink anything."

"A coaster?!" Quark's hands ball into fists. "It's not a coaster! It's a precious keepsake! A piece of history!" And it was expensive, is what he doesn't add again.

"And why do you want me to have it?"

Quark grinds his teeth and struggles to maintain his calm. His teeth dig painfully into his inner lip. They're getting long. He'll have to sharpen them down later. "How many times am I gonna have to say this?" He leans forward and speaks slowly. " _It's... a... gift._ "

"Hmph!"

Odo turns on his heel and stomps out, the emerald slice in his hand.

"You're welcome!" Quark calls after him, then, to himself, "Dumb frinxing changeling wouldn't know courting if it bit him in the--"

-

The bucket is useful. The bucket is expensive. It's latinum-plated. Gleaming silver. Filigree designs engraved in the outside. It was custom-made. And it was _expensive._

If Odo doesn't get the point from this, Quark is going to jump out an airlock.

Not really. But he'll get drunk about it.

He hasn't seen Odo all day, which is strange. Usually Odo drops in to bother him at least once before evening hits.

He's wiped the bar down for the night and just finished chasing the last drunk customer out of the establishment when he turns around and sees a _rat_ sauntering across the bar surface, leaving little pawprints on the pristine surface.

The rat has unusually deep-set eyes.

"I _just_ cleaned that," Quark groans.

The rat leaps off the countertop and turns to liquid in midair, taking his usual tall, lanky form and alighting on his feet with catlike grace.

"You'll just have to clean it again. Wouldn't want your patrons thinking you have a rodent problem."

"Worse. I've got a changeling problem." Quark brushes past Odo and wipes down the counter again. "What are you here for?"

"Are you responsible for the new bucket that turned up in my office?"

Quark's eyes flick up to meet Odo's and he smiles, crooked. "Depends whether you like it or not."

Odo sighs raggedly. "It's a very... functional bucket." Quark grins, and Odo continues on. "Just like my _last_ bucket."

"Sure, the old one was functional. But this one is _pretty._ You have to admit that, right? You can at least appreciate the craftsmanship?"

"Quark--"

"If not the craftsmanship, the _expense!_ It wasn't cheap, you know! And now it's yours, so you can get your beauty sleep in _style_ \--"

Odo interrupts him, arms crossed tight and eyes narrowed. "What game are you playing?"

_I love you, you stupid bastard!_

"Is it so hard to believe that someone cares about you enough to spend a little latinum--well, not a little--on you?"

"I don't know what you're trying to buy from me or what trick you're playing," Odo says, suspicion dripping off his words, "but I assure you, I'm going to find out."

Odo jumps into the air and transforms into a Tarkalean hawk in one smooth motion. He's gone from the bar and from Quark's eyesight within seconds.

"I sure hope you do," Quark says under his breath.

He pours himself an Aldeberan whiskey and stares at a tiny rat pawprint he missed.

-

"I don't know how to get through to him." Quark's face is in his hands, his elbows planted on the table. "Is this hopeless? Be honest."

"I don't think it's hopeless. I see how he looks at you, Quark. He just doesn't know you feel the same way."

"But nothing I've done to show him how I feel-- _nothing!_ \--works."

Jadzia hums and sips from her raktajino. "Have you tried talking to him?"

"Beetle snuff? Are you snorting beetle snuff?"

"I take it that's a no."

"I can't just come out and _say_ it!" Quark groans. "This is so much easier with other people."

"Oh, this is gonna be good. How so?"

"For us _normal_ people, you spend enough latinum on them and your intentions are pretty damn clear." Quark spreads his hands. "I've showered Odo in gifts and he doesn't care."

"Okay, I'm clearly missing something." Jadzia steeples her fingers. "So you're giving him gifts. And he... hates them?"

"He thinks I'm trying to bribe or trick him. Which, while I'll admit is incredibly on-brand for me, is clearly not the case in this situation!"

"Okay, and you can't use your big boy words because...?"

Quark crosses his arms. "First of all, I don't appreciate your tone. Bringing my height into this? _Really?_ Secondly, if he can't even believe that I want to give him gifts out of the goodness of my heart--"

Jadzia snorts. "The goodness of your _something_ , all right--"

"--what in the name of the Blessed Exchequer makes you think he'll believe that I'm--"

"In love?"

" _Keep your voice down!_ " Quark's eyes dart back and forth as he sweeps the area for unusually-placed knickknacks or suspiciously lurking rodents. "He could be _anywhere._ Are you trying to tell the whole Replimat?"

"Sorry. Sorry."

"But--yes, you're not wrong. What makes you think he'll believe me if I just come out and say that I'm--" He falters. "That I'm what you said."

"I guess, if you won't _communicate,_ you'll have to figure out some way to prove it to him, Quark."

"That's what I've been trying to do with the gifts! But he doesn't care, no matter how much latinum I drop on his ungrateful, unappreciative--"

"Maybe you're getting him the wrong things. Get him something from the heart, something that shows him you care," Jadzia says. "Maybe make something. Something thoughtful. The cost is immaterial, Quark."

Quark blinks. "I don't get it."

"Something from the h--"

"No, I heard that. I mean the part about the cost being immaterial. I don't believe it."

"He's not impressed with things because of sheer expense. You're going to have to go about this a very different way."

"So something cheap will please him."

"You're missing the point on purpose."

Quark flashes a little smile. "Well, you've been entirely unhelpful. But I'll think of something."

Jadzia looks at him over the rim of her mug and raises her eyebrows. "Good luck."

-

"Why don't you simply do what I did to win the heart of our beautiful Doctor?"

"Which was?!"

Garak gives a wide, reptilian smile. "Why, it's easy. Ask him to adopt some Cardassian orphans with you."

"Yeah, not doing that. You sure that's what won the doctor over?"

"It was either that or my beautiful ridges and charming personality," Garak says, "and you've got neither of those, so I thought I'd suggest the thing you were more capable of."

"I'll have you know I'm _devastatingly_ charming."

"In that case, what do you need an old tailor's advice for?" Garak shrugs. "I wouldn't worry too very much. You're already at an advantage here, my friend. Your beloved already feels the same way about you."

"I haven't even told you who it is," Quark scoffs.

Garak gives another lizard grin. "Incredible that you think you _had_ to."

-

"I didn't really have to do much! We met in the Replimat and, well, he just swept me off my feet."

Great. So all Bashir had to do was sit there and look pretty. Quark had tried that and it had gotten him nowhere.

"Who are you trying to woo, anyway?" Bashir asks, his dumb pretty head tilting and his dumb pretty eyes wide. No wonder he didn't have to try.

There are certain people he trusts this secret with. Jadzia is one of them. Bashir isn't. "I don't kiss and tell," Quark says loftily.

Bashir snorts. "Yes, you do."

He's got Quark there. "Well, I haven't _kissed_ this person yet, so I don't have anything to tell!"

-

"Go away," Major Kira says.

-

Quark agonizes. He paces. He thinks out loud.

"Can't I just buy him a Terran diamond the size of his head?"

Rom gasps. "Do you have the bars for that?"

"I'd find them if it meant he'd get the idea." Quark flops heavily into the counter. "But I think I could throw the entire treasury at his feet and he wouldn't understand.

"Leeta likes flowers," Rom says dreamily, his wide, empty eyes unfocusing as he puts all four of his brain cells to work. "You could try that."

"Great idea. I'll replicate a greeting card and some chocolates while I'm at it."

"Now you're thinking," Rom says, and pats Quark on the back. "You'll get your man!"

-

Jadzia is probably the smartest person Quark knows. He'd been half in love with her for a reason; she is perceptive and clever and almost always knows what to say. Quark supposes that's what happens when you live seven times. He may not be talons over lobes for her anymore, but he still admires her (frankly too much, in his opinion), and so her advice plays over and over again in his head.

It's as unhelpful as it was the first time.

_From the heart. Maybe make him something._

An idea dawns. One final last-ditch effort. If it doesn't work, then he'll quit trying and just pine away forever.

He'll have to take some nights off to do some work, but... this just might do it.

Either that, or it's the dumbest idea of the century. He figures the odds are fifty-fifty.

Eh. He's taken worse gambles.

-

Odo corners him on the way out of one of his holosuites a few days later.

"What are you doing up this late?" Odo crosses his arms.

"Couldn't sleep."

"You've been in the holosuites every night until three in the morning for the past four days," Odo snaps. "What are you up to?"

"The holoprogram edition of Romulan Love Slave III just came out four days ago, if you must know," Quark lies through his pointy teeth and leers in Odo's direction. "Want more details than that? I can provide plenty, if you're interested."

Odo makes a vaguely disgusted noise and turns away. Quark hurries to fall into step next to him. It looks like he's heading for the habitat ring. "What are _you_ doing here, anyway? Shouldn't you be a puddle right now?"

"You weren't in your quarters. It is my duty to investigate."

"Aw, you were worried about me."

"Hah. Worried about what you were up to, more like."

Odo could easily transform into a cheetah or a bird or some other much quicker shape and leave Quark in the dust, but instead, Odo stays humanoid and shortens his steps to let Quark keep up with him. It doesn't fall below Quark's notice, but he doesn't say anything about it. "Same difference," Quark says with a little shrug. "You always try your best to keep me out of trouble. It's sweet, in an _incredibly_ annoying kind of way."

They step into the lift together. Wordlessly, Odo punches the buttons for Quark's floor and then his own so that Quark doesn't have to. "You're much less of a disturbance when you're out of trouble, Quark."

"You're making me blush." Odo graces him with that under-his-breath chuckle that he gives and doesn't say anything. The turbolift doors open on Quark's floor. "I'll see you later," Quark says, stepping out of the lift.

"You will," he says, grumpily, and then--softer, maybe, or is Quark imagining things again?--he adds "good night, Quark."

-

Odo slams his hands on the bartop, his face thunderous. " _Quark!_ "

"Good morning to you too," Quark grumbles. "Can't a guy have a raktajino before he gets accused of fraud in the morning?"

"Oh no, it isn't fraud this time."

"Smuggling?"

"Are you confessing to something?"

"You'd get off on that, wouldn't you?" Quark crosses his arms. "I'm just rolling through the usual list of things you baselessly attempt to pin on an absolutely innocent businessm--"

"Do you know what I discovered, Quark?" His eyes glitter as he interrupts him. Quark's danger senses, finely honed through many years of dubious and unpleasant practice, prickle. Odo waits for him to speak.

"What did you discover, Constable," Quark finally says, fully aware that he's walking headlong into a trap (or more accurately, that he's already done so.)

Odo's voice raises. "I learned that there _is_ no holoprogram edition of Romulan Love Slave III."

Rom, at the other side of the bar, gasps and drops a cup on the floor in shock at Odo's loud mention of Romulan Love Slave III.

Quark groans. "So what?"

" _So what_ have you been up to in the holosuites in the middle of the night? It isn't like you to be up so late."

Odo's memorized his sleep schedule? He doesn't know why he's surprised.

"Porn!"

"No. It's not that. If it were that, why did you _lie_ and tell me the _wrong one?_ It's something else."

"Fine, you caught me." Quark spreads his hands out. "I've been doing routine maintenance."

"I thought you'd say that, so I took the liberty of accessing the holosuite maintenance records."

"You've _gotta_ be kidding me."

At that, Odo manages to look even _more_ self-satisfied. "And according to the records, all of your holosuites were _just_ inspected two weeks ago. Everything was in perfect working order."

"Those records could be falsified."

"Are you admitting to falsifying maintenance records, then?"

"You're infuriating, you know that? Why's it any of your business what I get up to in my own holosuites at night?"

"Whenever you hide something on this station, Quark, it is automatically my business. Moreso when you lie about it."

Quark scrubs his hands over his face. "Fine. Okay. I'll show you what I was doing. I _want_ to show you, that's kind of the point of this whole thing, and--if I don't just show you I'll just keep fine-tuning until I ruin it."

The changeling actually looks taken aback. Good. "What are you talking about?"

"What I've been up to. I can show you, but it has to be later. Are you free tonight?"

Odo considers it.

"You're gonna wanna have a few hours blocked out for this," Quark adds.

A strange look passes over Odo's features. "What have you done this time?" He doesn't sound upset. More genuinely curious.

"Do you wanna see or not?"

"Hrmf."

"That's what I thought. Just meet me here at 0200 hours."

"Very well," Odo says, bemused, and isn't that a treat to see on Odo's smug face? "0200 hours."

-

It's hell waiting for the day to be over. Quark spends most of it letting Rom tend the bar while he puts last-minute touches on Odo's gift. It feels simultaneously like forever and not long enough, but finally--either mercifully or cruelly, Quark can't tell--the clock strikes 0200.

"What is it that you've been up to here, then?"

Quark looks over his shoulder. There's the object of his misplaced affections, right on time. "I've been making something. Um." He clears his throat and taps on the panel a bit. "I, uh. Follow me." The holosuite doors open, and Quark steps through the arch. The ground is soft and squishy underneath his boots; he kicks them off and leaves them outside the holosuite doors. Rain falls softly, dampening his clothes. He flexes his toes in the spongy, mossy ground, reveling in the feel. He's missed this place.

"What's this?"

"I'll tell you. Just come in."

"I have very little interest in your depraved--"

"This isn't a sex program! Blessed Exchequer, Odo, you've already figured out that it isn't a sex program. Just come in." He smiles nervously, crookedly. "The rain's warm, I swear."

Odo hesitates for only a moment before steps inside and the door seals shut behind him, enclosing them in the wilds.

"See that over there?" Quark points northeast. "That building?"

"Yes?"

Quark licks raindrops from his lips. "That was the house I was born in. We're on the edge of the woods where I played."

Odo's eyes are wide as he looks out at the small home, then back into the woods. He doesn't have Ferengi brow ridges to shield his eyes from the rain, so he blinks away droplets. "This is Ferenginar? This is where you grew up?"

Quark hums agreement. The clouds move, and the sky above goes darker. "Hey, c'mon, it's about to rain a hell of a lot harder. Follow me."

He reaches out and grasps Odo's wrist and Odo _lets him._ He follows nimbly behind as Quark weaves through the trees and underbrush, along paths that he made by traveling them over and over.

The woods are thick and damp. A sweet, earthy scent hangs in the air.

"We'll stay dry here," Quark says, settling in by a craggy tree. It has huge, flat leaves that shield the ground below. Quark leans against the trunk and Odo follows suit.

"You made this?" Odo asks, eyes wide, and Quark nods. The rain falls harder, transforming from a soft mist into a torrential downpour. Water sluices off the leaves and makes puddles, rivulets finding their way through the moss and brush to meet and form flows. "All of this? It's so--"

"Listen," Quark says. "Just listen for half a second."

As he watches, Odo closes his eyes.

"My hearing isn't as good as yours," Odo says quietly. "Tell me what to listen for."

"Okay," Quark murmurs. "Um...the rain, hitting the leaves overhead. You can tell how hard it's raining just from the sound."

"What else?"

"Areas down here where there's _no_ sound. That's where there are bigger tree trunks." Quark pauses for a second. "The sounds of animals in their burrows, scurrying for cover just like us. Insects and grubs drawn to the surface, you can hear them moving under logs and rocks."

Odo's face is soft, his eyes closed and the ghost of a smile on his mouth. He's _enjoying_ this.

"The woods come alive when there's a glebbening--a rain like this," Quark whispers.

"I can hear that," Odo replies, barely above a breath.

"C'mere. Open your eyes." Quark crouches and Odo follows him down without complaint. Quark reaches out and overturns a branch; glittering beetles shine under there, carapaces black like obsidian.

Odo reaches down, lets a few harmless little beetles climb up his fingers. He observes them with a small smile. "Did you spend a lot of your time here?"

"Too much time, if you asked my mother. She was always afraid I'd fall in a sinkhole and drown." Quark looks up. "I used to be able to climb up these trees. Kept my nails long just for that."

"I thought you didn't like being out in nature."

"This is different," Quark says. Thunder rolls lazily through the air, a little flash of lightning in the distance. Rain patters harder on the leaves above, droplets breaking through the spaces between the foliage and landing on the two of them.

The rain slows to a pleasant _melnering_. Quark steps out into it. "It's not gonna let up any more than this. You okay with getting wet or do you want me to edit--"

"Don't change it. It's perfect this way." Odo steps out from under the leaves, allows the warm melnering to slide over him. He looks happy, content, and Quark grins.

"Wanna see where I hunted for mushrooms?"

"I do," Odo nods, and Quark can feel his shoulders wiggle with barely restrained joy as he picks through the brush and further into the woods.

"The air feels good. The humidity of it." Odo sighs, following close behind Quark as they make their way down narrow paths, careful to step over beetle trails and worm mounds so as not to crush the creatures. "What does it smell like?"

Right. Odo doesn't have a sense of smell. But he must know Ferenginar's reputation for smelling disgusting, fetid, rotten. He's asking for Quark to describe it to him anyway, how _he_ perceives it.

"It smells nice," he says, and he means it. "Heavy. Swampy, but good. A full, _clean_ kind of scent. The rain washes everything, and plants breaking down and regrowing smell sweet and a little musty, in a good way."

Odo breathes deeply. Quark knows he can't smell it, but he can feel the air plush and warm in his carefully manufactured lungs.

The trees part and reveal a clear pond, plants creeping around the edges and the surface broken with ripples by the rain which has turned into a light _vinkling,_ almost a mist. Quark kneels (hologrammatic mud won't stain his suit, not permanently) and brushes aside a thick blanket of leaves to reveal glowing mushrooms poking through the rich dirt beneath. "If this were real, I'd eat these," he sighs.

Odo kneels beside him, unflinching and unworried about getting muddy himself. He slides his hands through the leaves as well, pushing them out of the way and looking for more mushrooms. "These are edible?"

"For Ferengi," Quark says. "For everyone else, they're incredibly poisonous."

"What do they taste like?"

Quark smiles, watching Odo carefully pluck mushrooms and pile them up, just like he did as a child. "Earthy. Kind of meaty. I'd wash them off here in this spring and eat them if I didn't want to go home for lunch."

"It's a spring?"

"Our water table is high. A lot of ponds like this are fed because holes were punched in the aquifer way back."

Quark watches as Odo peers into the clear water. Quark scoots closer to the water's edge and slips his feet in. The algae floor is thick and lush, soft against his soles and between his toes. Odo follows suit, shifting his own shoes away.

The rain continues but the clouds break. Rare sunbeams slide through the forest and glint off the water's broken surface. A ray of gold light falls over Odo's face, his wet hair shining blonde, each raindrop on his skin reflecting.

"I built a treehouse further down the path," Quark says. "You wanna go see that or do you wanna see the house I grew up in?"

"Can we stay here for just a little longer?"

"Yeah. Yeah, of course." Quark splashes the water just a little bit. "Whatever you want."

"I never knew Ferenginar was like this."

"Like what?"

"Beautiful."

"Maybe it's not. But this is how I remember it," Quark says, wistfully.

"This isn't an exact replica?"

"It's as exact as I remember. It's not like I can reference it." Quark sighs. "This whole forest was bulldozed and paved over when I was ten. A luxury housing complex sits here now."

He hears Odo take a sharp breath. "I'm sorry to hear that."

Quark shrugs and curls his toes in the slick algae. "It's fine."

"You and I are the same in that way, then."

"Hm?"

"Our childhoods don't exist." There's a sadness in Odo's eyes. "And here I am, infringing as you try to revisit it. I'm sorry, Quark."

Odo moves to stand up and Quark grasps his hand.

He really thought he'd gotten his point across this time. And now the moment is about to slip through his fingers. " _No!_ No, Odo, you've got it wrong again!"

Odo freezes, looks down at where Quark holds his hand. "You don't have to--"

"Odo, _it's for you!_ "

Quark's sharp cry cuts through the forest leaving silence in its wake. Odo is stunned. For a long moment there's no sounds but the rain and the leaves and the trees swaying with it. Odo sits back down, soundlessly, puzzled. When he does speak, his voice sounds small. "For _me?_ " He blinks. "Of _all_ people, you made this for me?"

"This was my favorite place in the universe and all of it is for you," Quark continues, feeling suddenly very silly as he drops Odo's hand; he looks away, unable to withstand Odo's eyes on him. "I'm sorry I couldn't find a real gift you liked. In my defense you are incredibly difficult to shop for."

Odo looks shocked and beautiful there in the rain and the sunlight. Strands of hair fall into his face and Quark resists the urge to push them back. The space between them seems small.

"You couldn't find a _real_ gift?" Odo scoffs, incredulous disbelief written on his voice. "That's the most _preposterous_ thing I've ever heard you say, Quark."

"Really? Because you've heard me say a _lot_ of--"

"Be quiet," Odo says, absolutely no venom behind the words. "This is _serious._ This program is what you've been working on for days?"

There's dirt underneath Odo's usually perfectly clean fingernails. Quark's heart pounds. "You understand why I said it was porn now, right? 'Cause that's way less embarrassing than--than--"

Odo's brow furrows. "Is this embarrassing? To want to share this part of yourself?"

"I..." _I wanna share more than this part._ Quark's words die in his throat.

"Quark, look at me."

_You dug up these gree-worms, Quark, now you gotta eat them even if they bite back._

" _Look at me._ "

He swallows and meets Odo's eyes. "Do you get it now? Please say you finally get it."

"More importantly," Odo says, " _you_ finally get it."

Odo closes the space between them and Quark stills, shivers, melts. Odo's mouth is warmer than the sun painting Quark's skin, warmer than the melnering coming down. He tastes like rainwater, pure, clean. He kisses with slowness and inexperience, carefully, like he's trying to get it right. He pulls back after a few moments, rests his forehead down against Quark's.

Garak and Jadzia were _right._ Odo _did_ feel the same way all along. A laugh bubbles in Quark's throat. "So that means you like the gift?" he asks, smiling so hard his cheeks hurt and a little hysterical, and Odo huffs.

"It's better than I could have imagined."

Quark brushes wet hair off of Odo's forehead with shaking fingers, reveling in being _allowed_ to. "That's not saying much. You have a terrible imagination."

"Hrmf," Odo grunts, but the shine in his eyes betrays him. "Be _quiet,_ Quark."

Quark tries to leer, but his heart is too full, and he thinks it probably turns out a lot more like a sincere, joyful grin. "You wanna make me?"

"Yes," Odo says, and presses Quark against the plush moss below.

**Author's Note:**

> *jazzy trombone solo* nobody tells the constable what to do
> 
> edit: https://edgebugart.tumblr.com/post/637801596109062144/ drew art of the "it's for you!" scene here it is yeehaw


End file.
